We felt compelled to create a page on our website devoted solely to the importance of creativity.
We urge you to share these links with friends and parents.
Speech by Sir Ken Robinson - Schools are Killing Creativity.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
Elizabeth Gilbert on Nuturing Creativity
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html
Nancy Shute, 10 Reasons Play Can Make You Healthy, Happy, and More Productive
http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/childrens-health/2009/03/09/10-reasons-play-can-make-you-healthy-happy-and-more-productive.html
From ExchangeEveryDay - the newsletter of ChildCareExchange.com:
Play is Disappearing
March 27, 2009
Your imagination is your preview of life's coming attractions. - Albert Einstein
Time for play in most public kindergartens has dwindled to the vanishing point, replaced by lengthy lessons and standardized testing, according to three new studies released today by the Alliance for Childhood. Classic play materials like blocks, sand and water tables, and props for dramatic play have largely disappeared from the 268 full-day kindergarten classrooms studied. The studies were conducted by researchers from U.C.L.A., Long Island University, and Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Their findings are documented in Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School. The researchers found that:Child development experts have been raising alarms about the increasingly didactic, test-driven, and joyless course of early childhood education. "These practices, which are not well grounded in research, violate long-established principles of child development and good teaching," states the Alliance’s report. "It is increasingly clear that they are compromising both children’s health and their long-term prospects for success in school."
- On a typical day, kindergartners in Los Angeles and New York City spend four to six times as long being instructed and tested in literacy and math (two to three hours per day) as in free play or “choice time” (30 minutes or less).
- Standardized testing and preparation for tests are now a daily activity in most of the kindergartens studied, despite the fact that the use of most such tests with children under age eight is scientifically invalid and leads to harmful labeling.
- In many kindergarten classrooms there is no playtime at all. Teachers say the curriculum does not incorporate play, there isn’t time for it, and many school administrators do not value it.